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Day 133 – 20th April 09

Just a quick note here about the photo quality, I seem to have a mark on the lens at the top left which I cannot get rid of, it may be an internal thing, but for the moment I have to live with it. As I have extended warranty, it may have to be sent back to Oz for work, I am not sure yet, if so that will be a PITA!

This morning I had a very unsuccessful exchange on the phone with UPS a postal company. I had sent my shock back to Elka to Canada two weeks ago, so I checked it online and it had arrived but was not being accepted because of a dispute with taxes or something :( Rather than write it all out here, this is the tracking number, if anyone wants to use UPS I highly advise you not to.

1Z E80 W80 68 3913 248 4, just copy and paste all that in google and it will show up with all the bull until this gets resolved.

After I found a phone number it turns out that there is no tax, so why does the web page say so? What there is, is customs and brokerage charges as it is an international address. This is a rip off and was not explained to me by the person in the UPS shop that I sent it from. It cost me $25 originally for postage, now they reckon there is an additional $80 for customs, crikey! And all this for a shock absorber that is being sent back to its own factory for possible warranty work. Well I was severely unimpressed and had to hang up before I let loose at the girl on the phone, she could not help me in any way. Grrrrr!

Well, after that little episode I tried the number in Bishop for a tyre, no answer to the phone, so he was out of the running. After that I contacted Judi at Adventure MotoStuff and they had tyres to suit so that was good. Decision made, I was heading north, but by all reckoning it was going to be a warm day, so I dispensed with the thermal gear for a change, hopefully this is a good decision. By the time all this had been sorted out it was nearly 11am, so after packing and fuelling up I was off, heading north with snow capped mountains in front of me again, I had thought to have seen the last of them :)

Not far out of town I spotted this place on the left, I am not sure if it is the best in the west, but it is certainly one of them Whorehouses called the Playmate Ranch :) I think it was closed, no action at all, except some barking dogs, lets not go there :)

About half an hour after that I came to Hawthorne, which apparently is the manufacturing town in America of the army’s ammunition, it is hard to tell, but the area was covered in bunkers.

It was also a Naval testing base, which I thought strange this far from the ocean, but then I realised there was a large lake here and the road wound around this lake, great scenery, with a speed boat marring the water surface.

I checked my tyre here and it still had enough meat left to get me there. The ride around the lake was nice.

Up further the road was lined with dead trees, but I could just see a tinge of green on the tips, so I guess in a short while this would look a lot nicer.

Now, have I mentioned my confusion with the American street addresses etc? I am sure I have, well it got me again today. The streets are all numbered, which sounds easy, until you add east,west,north,south etc, then it gets confusing. Anyway, I had entered the address for Motostuff and it was a building number 3331 on highway 50. Well, that sounds easy eh and my TomTom accepted the instructions and safely delivered me to the address, hmmm, maybe not so!

I had gone all the way through town, up a mountain, beautiful twisties though and eventually turned off down this small track and ended up at a snow mobile staging area, hah! You can see where I went by the map, way up near the lake, lol, the funny thing is, that there was actually something at that address in the first place. OK, let’s try again, and my mistake was to select highway 50 west, not highway 50 east, doh! But, now it did not like the building number, so I tried again a different way, by using cross streets and this time I get a different answer. Down the mountain I go and of course I ended up going all the way back to the other side of town and until eventually I found the shop. I had passed it on the way in :)

I met up with Chad and Judi and as it was now after 4pm, I elected to do it in the morning rather than rush it now as I also wanted to drop the oil as well. I had a look around the shop and kept my credit card firmly under lock and key at this stage, maybe tomorrow, the tyre is the most important :)
I found a cheap motel and spent a quiet evening checking out some stuff on the net about Death Valley etc. I had now in the past three weeks, doubled the amount of miles the bike had done in the previous year :)

Oh, by the way, I need to correct an error from the other week. When I went to Goblin Vally I mentioned seeing some deer, well a few people mentioned the fact that they are not deer, but prong horn antelope, consider myself corrected and here is a refresher of the subject. I cannot see any difference, they still look like deer to me, but I guess if you live here, it makes a difference :)

13 Responses to “Day 133 – 20th April 09”

Jack Bowensaid

TS You have been to Adventure Motorstuff. That like makes you cool now. I can’t believe you passed up that cat house. How we would have all loved to read about it in your blog. Now get your tire on, buy some neat stuff and show me the next thing.

Donundersaid

Me again TS. Did you do something to correct the photos? In your Apr 19th entry I could only see, for instance, Victor’s face and about two thirds of yours (probably not a bad thing!) Now I’m getting a wider view. Might be my computer??? Great writing so far, although your patience is being tested with some of your dealings over there. Get your new tyre on and hit the road. Good luck mate. Stay well.

travellingstromsaid

Wrong names and wrong dates mayb, but I have done nothing here to anything, so maybe your pute changed screen size? Right click on your desktop(in XP) select properties, select the ‘Settings’ tab and make sure screen resolution is at minimum 1024×768, that should be a large enough resolution to get the photos in frame correctly. I know my parents have the same issue, but they have the screen at an even lower resolution, nothing can be done with that at all.

My patience with the postal system here has been severely tested and still being done. I have a tyre though, fittted by Chad at AM, also a new oil and filter, a new bike cover and a spare filter. A very expensive day, but I tested the tyre through some twisties and I am here to write about it :) Death Valley here I come :)

travellingstromsaid

Yeah, it must be an alien. I cleaned it again just now after seeing todays photos also spoiled :( There is nothing in there to clean, I may have to buy a cheapie until I can get this one fixed under warranty. Another frustrating process I am sure.

The heat in DV will be extreme, over 40C, but it is supposed to be cooler later in the week, I may redesign my plans by a day or so.